Reittimerkintä on punainen.

to be

Breakdown of Reittimerkintä on punainen.

• punainen: red
• reittimerkintä: the trail marker

Questions & Answers about Reittimerkintä on punainen.

Why is reittimerkintä written as one word?

Because Finnish writes compound nouns as a single word.

Reittimerkintä is made of:

• reitti = route, trail
• merkintä = marking, mark, sign

So reittimerkintä is a compound noun, literally something like route-marking or trail marker.

This is very common in Finnish. Where English often uses two words, Finnish often uses one compound word.

What form is reittimerkintä in?

It is in the nominative singular, which is the basic dictionary form for a noun.

In this sentence, reittimerkintä is the subject:

• Reittimerkintä = the route marker / trail marker
• on = is
• punainen = red

So grammatically, it is the thing being described.

Why is there no word for the or a?

Finnish does not have articles like English a/an and the.

So reittimerkintä can mean:

• a route marker
• the route marker

Which one is meant depends on context.

This is one of the biggest differences from English. Finnish usually leaves definiteness unstated unless the context makes it clear.